Yeah, I was thinking in terms of an emergency bandage. If the circumstances ever dictate, I guess I won't hesitate to give it a try.

Your posts kinda remind me of what my Dad was told in Air Force reserve first aid training. If someone's bleeding out, don't obsess about washing your hands - infections can be treated with antibiotics, death due to blood loss can't be treated by anything.

It's good thinking, either for battlefield medicine, or emergency response. A man with a hole in his gut is in fairly dire straits; he's not too worried about where your hands have been, and if he's not, you sure as fuck shouldn't be.

Same goes for sucking it up and applying a tourniquet. Lots of people shy away from it, thinking it's immediately a lost limb. Even if it was, and it's not, they're still alive.

And CPR. Everyone I ever trained, I told to expect, maybe try, to crack a rib. First, if you're doing it right, it's inevitable. Second, if you don't perform CPR, he's dead. Cracked ribs don't just hurt like fuck, but are inconvenient as shit, and for a while; I'll take that over dead, every time it's offered.

Edited to add:If you ever do try it, drop a line, let me know how it goes. It's handy stuff to have around anyway, and if it's got more viable applications, that's only good to know.

It's damn solid advice to tell people just to try something, especially in a CPR situation. I have only basic level first aid courses done, but it's really worth remembering that fear of doing something wrong should not keep you from CPR. I mean, if the fucker isn't breathing and doesn't have a pulse, he's essentially dead already, so what's the worst that can happen? Another 20 years of miserable life if you manage to restart him :)

I'd hate to hijack and turn this into an Advice From Medical People thread, but this is super interesting to me. Over the summer I watched a car accident and got the instinctive-call-911 part down, but wouldn't have had a clue what to do after that. A cyclist's belt-tourniquet ended up saving the victim's life, and I wish I'd had the werewithal to figure that out independently. I'm not sure where you're from, Mike Carey, but what kind of first-aid training would you recommend for that sort of thing? St John's or what have you? I definitely want quick and dirty tips, not for the faint of heart. Obviously I should take CPR, but is there something specifically for emergency/ad-hoc situations? Or maybe wilderness or something?

I'd just like to point out that, unless I'm mistaken, you can't restart someone's heart just with CPR. You just make it pump blood (so as to keep the brain oxygenated) until someone with a defibrillator can try to restart it.

Actually - if I haven't been mislead by various first aid texts I've absorbed over the years - you can restart someone's heart. If the heart isn't functioning you should deliver a couple of hard, sudden whacks to the chest to try and shock it back into action. If that fails then you start with CPR.

Allana, CPR will likely crack adult ribs. Kids have more cartilage, and tend to bounce back a little more. That reaction is why I always banged on about it when I taught the course: if you expect it going in, and know that it's not that bad, compared to the alternative, you're more likely to do something that has a chance of helping.

Finding training for the down and dirty stuff is hard. Many colleges, universities, and some trades schools, if they handle majors or classes that involve being the hell out beyond civilization, will sometimes offer courses in wilderness medicine. Something to stabilize, get a person ambulatory. Those classes are often open to the public, because there's few enough students making the course worth offering. If you're a student, and the campus has EMT services, they'll often take students, and provide training; EMT and First Responder training is remarkably expensive in many areas. Or you could enlist in the Navy, train as a corpsman, pursue FMF and other operational experience, and get the real ugly battlefield medicine schooling.

But knowing those who do any of these things, and asking the questions... It's not the same, but it can teach you things.

Vornaskotti, the approach of, "This guy is dead already, nothing I can do can make him much worse off." is the most valuable perspective you can give to someone who might have to respond to an emergency. If you sit and watch, and worry about what might happen, he stays dead. Give it a go, and he might just have a chance.

Wood, you nailed it. CPR doesn't really save anyone's life. It just makes sure the brain and the heart get a dosing of oxygen. It keeps them save-able until a higher level of care. And the issue of actually restarting the hard is complicated. Despite what every popular depiction teaches us, shocking a person with no pulse won't do a damn thing. It's essentially there to steady or reset a rhythm when it gets ... off. But without a rhythm, it doesn't do anything. CPR can give you a temporary rhythm, and the defibrillator can take it from there. Without the CPR, the defib is a waste of time, and without the defib, the CPR is unlikely to get him up and send him on his way.

Edited to add:Purple, it's possible to restart the heart. It's unlikely to take, without a defib to "set" it, but it's possible. But leave off the whacks, go straight to the compressions. The steady rhythm is your best bet at sparking the response for which you're hoping. And you're already looking at breaking a couple ribs... don't punch his ass while he's down, too.

For what it's worth, I am sorry for what must look like a thread-jack. If there's enough interest in this, we can start something new, collect all the random life-saving debris floating around in all our noggins. If ever there's trivia worth lodging in more brains, I figure it's this...

1) never assume someone in a low wage job is uneducated and stupid. You will be pranked. 2) good luck finding the dehydrated h20.3) never leave your drink unattended. 4) if you think something is too stupid to have been said or done, you are probably wrong. If you heard your coworker say something insane, you probably weren't mishearing things. 5) onions on the floor are deadly. 6) don't open that bucket that's been hidden in the back for a few days and has a funky smell. 7) DO NOT TRUST mystery milkshakes from a suddenly nice coworker. Those aren't Oreos, they are olives.

Learn to lift heavy objects properly and put said learning into practice whenever there are heavy objects to be lifted.

My spine still hurts from the tonnes of Harry Potter I shifted back then.

If you happen to work in a bookshop it is handy to know that most major suppliers, when dealing with damaged stock, will accept the title page from the front of a book along with a relevant claim form and give credit for a new copy, leaving the damaged copy to supposedly be "destroyed" by you.

From my brief stint as a courier driver in London- don't.

Echoing some of Greasemonkey's wisdom from upthread - invest heavily in carbon filtering for your home gardening projects - a worn out filter can really fuck things up.

From my many years working as a bud tender in Amsterdam - it really isn't the "BEST JOB IN THE WORLD DUDE!!" as I am often told by visitors.

Try telling me that when I'm cleaning puke from behind the radiator for my eight euros an hour

While loosely in the neighbourhood of that point (and possibly apt for the medical emergency thread as well) If you are ever taken unwell through the use of cannabis, sugar is your friend.

The classic weed "whitey" can be quite a scary experience and usually happens when consuming on an empty stomach. A rapid drop in blood pressure brings on feeling of nausea, sweats and dizziness- by this point you will have taken on a very pale coloring as all the blood rushes to your vital organs- it is not unusual for people to faint and sometimes vomit.

The key thing to remember is that you are going to be fine and to stay calm, try to drink some sugar water or some kind of sweet, non-carbonated drink and don't be in a rush to stand up and go anywhere. Generally the worst will pass after half an hour and from then on you are just stoned and you may as well try to enjoy it.

When consuming cannabis edibles, bear in mind that the onset of effect is delayed but longer lasting once it begins, be careful not to consume too much.

When consuming cannabis edibles, bear in mind that the onset of effect is delayed but longer lasting once it begins, be careful not to consume too much.

It's impossible to repeat this warning enough. Expect a delay of an hour to an hour and a half for the effects of edible weed products, with a peak about two hours after consumption. Never, ever make the rookie mistake of waiting half an hour, deciding nothing's happening, and then scoffing several more edibles in an attempt to get high faster; you will find yourself descending into the most fucked-up and terrifying bad trip of your life, coming at you in ever-increasing waves of intensity. (You can't actually die from a weed overdose, but you'll be convinced that you're dying).

Ah yes, this reminds me of an incident that occurred in the early 2000s - Dave's Astonishing Get Fired Cake. There was a birthday party one Saturday. A number of the attendees consumed some very, very strong pot cake. On Tuesday they were all still there, and some of them were now unemployed.

1.) Be thick skinned2.) Recognize that everyone has a sob story3.)Pretend the money we're handing out for pawns and buys is your own. (this is probably the easiest one to get and one of the most important.) Would you want to give someone 150 bucks for a laptop with 1gig of ram, windows XP and a 250gig HDD? I wouldn't.4.)Learn and love gold and silver stamps.5.)Always, always test to see if the item works. It seems like common sense, but selling someone a thing, and then they call angrily 30 minutes later when they get home and it doesn't work? It will ruin your day and theirs. 6.) Stick to your guns-If you're confident of a price or a decision about someone's pawn and/or buy, stick to it.7.) Be Honest and straight forward.8.) Become as familiar with as many brands across as many products as possible.9.) Comfortable shoes.

Whether you're performing basic clerical taskings, or rucking 50+ pounds of gear through shitty mountain terrain, footwear is an essential consideration. Take the time to figure out what kind of feet you have: wide, flat, pronation-prone, whatever. Buy comfortable footwear that fits well, and mod them as appropriate with insoles, shanks, as you might need.

From infantry to physician assistants to green-grocers, wise and experienced men of all walks and backgrounds have advised me never to skimp on shoes/boots.

It can be shocking just how much improvement you can see in posture and comfort by taking care of your feet.